Kevin Kruse is the Founder and CEO of LEADx, offering the world’s first leadership trainer and coach powered by IBM Watson. Kevin is also a New York Times bestselling author of nine books including Great Leaders Have No Rules: Contrarian Leadership Principles to Transform Your Team and Business.

What you will learn from this episode:

• How Kevin first discovered the power of leadership, and how that lesson became the focus of his book Great Leaders Have No Rules
• Why the ubiquitous “open door policy” actually causes more harm than good, and why “closing your door and opening your calendar” is the key to empowering those you lead
• How Kevin and his team developed the first AI-powered leadership trainer, Coach Amanda, to help people develop their leadership skills in a conversational way
• Why every time Kevin wants to start a company, he starts a podcast and then turns the content of the podcast into a book first
• How being a nine-time bestselling author positions Kevin to be an expert and trusted thought leader, and what strategies he suggests for people wanting to write a book
• Why Kevin strongly recommends launching a podcast for anyone wanting to move into thought leadership, and what advantages a podcast can allow you to leverage
• Why focusing on adding value for your audience will help you grow your business exponentially
• How to use, reuse, and repackage your content to be able to share it across many different channels
• How Kevin learned to define success not as a number but instead as the freedom to spend his time how he likes

Resources:

• Great Leaders Have No Rules by Kevin Kruse: https://amzn.to/2qTAt34
• Website: https://leadx.org/
• Website: www.norulesleadership.com
• Onward Nation episode 126 with Kevin Kruse: https://predictiveroi.com/podcasts/kevin-kruse/
• Twitter: @kruse
• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/kevinkruse67/
• Facebook: https://business.facebook.com/KruseAuthor/

Dr. Mik Kersten spent a decade creating open-source developer tools before realizing that programming was not the bottleneck of large-scale software delivery. Since that time, he has been working on creating a model and tools for connecting the end-to-end software value stream.

He has been named a JavaOne Rock Star speaker and one of the IBM developerWorks Java top 10 writers of the decade. He was selected as one of the 2012 Business in Vancouver 40 under 40 and has been a World Technology Awards finalist in the IT Software category. Kersten is the editor of the new IEEE Software Department on DevOps.

Prior to founding Tasktop, Mik created the Eclipse Mylyn open source project as part of his Ph.D. in Computer Science, pioneering the integration of development tools with the delivery pipeline.

What you will learn from this episode:

• How Mik recognized that the way business software is designed often doesn’t meet the real needs of its users, and why he founded Tasktop to solve problems
• How Mik’s background as a developer gives him an informed foundation to understand customer pain points and problems and insights into how software can address them
• Why maintaining a focus on solving the problems found in business software and customer needs helped Mik pivot Tasktop more effectively
• Why Mik was inspired to move into the realm of thought leadership and write his book Project to Product
• How listening to his customers and understanding their stories was a transformative experience that helped shape Mik’s thought leadership and reframe his beliefs
• How thought leadership has helped to elevate Mik’s message and helped him better align with his customers’ needs and future proof his business against economic recession
• Why the overwhelmingly positive reception to Project to Product was in direct response to Mik’s effort to serve and help his readers
• Mik shares key points and information from Project to Product about his Flow Framework methods and how businesses and software can be better aligned with each other
• How key lessons learned from his mentor helped Mik learn to focus on both long term success and near term profitability

Resources:

• Website: http://projecttoproduct.org/
• Twitter: @mik_kersten
• Project to Product by Mik Kersten: https://amzn.to/2XKSAEx

Ken Hardison has fought for people’s rights as a trusted personal injury lawyer for over 35 years. His ethics, integrity, and passion for his clients helped to build one of North Carolina’s most successful firms, Hardison & Cochran, and a successful Social Security disability firm, Carolina Disability Lawyers, in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Now, as owner and publisher of the law firm management website, Law Practice Advisor, and founder and president of PILMMA, the Personal Injury Lawyers Marketing & Management Association, Ken devotes his time to helping attorneys build their own preeminent law practices with proven marketing strategies and management resources. Ken has been recognized as one of the top 100 Trial Lawyers in North Carolina and is a member of the exclusive Million Dollar Advocates Forum. Systematic Marketing is his tenth book. Ken has authored 5 books on marketing and managing law firms. He is a sought-after speaker throughout the country on marketing and managing law firms.

Ken is known as the “Millionaire Maker” due to his coaching clients doubling and quadrupling their law practices and income following Ken’s practice growing advice and insights.

Ken lives in North Myrtle Beach, SC where he enjoys playing golf and fishing when he is not helping lawyers grow their practices.

What you will learn from this episode:

• Ken shares his career journey that ultimately led to founding the Personal Injury Lawyers Marketing & Management Association (PILMMA)
• How Ken first recognized the importance of legal marketing, and why he chose to learn the intricacies of the business
• Why Ken decided to focus on personal injury clients and worker’s compensation and disability cases
• How Ken and his partners scaled their firm from one office to eight across North Carolina, and what sort of growing pains Ken experienced
• Why Ken’s decades of experience working in the trenches sets him apart from his competitors
• Why keeping a clear focus and managing your time are the keys to success, and what steps Ken takes to avoid “time vampires” throughout his day
• What important lesson Ken learned from his mentor Dan Kennedy about delegating work to others and accepting that “good is good enough”
• Why you should leverage your strengths and then hire the right people to complement your weaknesses
• Why Ken’s experience shows that law firms who focus on a defined mission, clear values, and a shared vision are the ones that are growing the fastest
• What key steps business leaders can take to clarify their goals and align others within their organizations to their vision

Resources:

• Website: www.pilmma.org
• Email: ken@pilmma.org
• Grow Your Law Firm podcast: www.pilmma.org/grow-your-law-firm-podcast/